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Face to Face; West gallery, The Hague

In the exhibitionFace to Face West shows four works about body communication, or rather facial communication.

In Bjørn Melhus’ video Out Of The Blue a lecture is given about growing up in the beginning of the age of mass communication and entertainment by television. Your teacher has a sack over his head. Does mass communication make the individual faceless? How acceptable is visual communication without a representative face?

In Stefan Panhans’ video Sorry look-alikes of famous people from the entertainment industry rub shoulders in a crowded train.

Although there is hardly any space for body language there is a body language of sorts in spite of the fact that none of the passengers is looking at one another.

Meg Stuart’s video The Only Possible City shows a person trying to suppress her weeping.

The expressions are directly recognisable as an expression of sorrow and loss, the pain of life and the will to go on with life in spite of that pain.

Christoph Girardet’s and Matthias Müller’s double slide series Everything Not Said combines short sentences from psychiatric questionnaires with pictures of people with bandaged faces from movies, which is

probably one of the most inclusive of the works on show, the bandages being the expression of the faces combined with these very intimate questions about inner well being or inner pain. As such it is a well composed and, in a way, very moving show. Go and take your time to see it for yourself, it’s very much worth it!